The Ancient Beauty of Yemenite Wedding Ceremonies, Up Close
Approximately a week before a Yemenite wedding takes place, what’s known as a henna ceremony is performed. Just as the name suggests, the ritual involves the application of temporary natural dye to the hands of the bride in intricate patterns that symbolize fertility. The crowning glory of her look, which comes in vibrant red—also to symbolize fertility—and gold, is a majestic beaded headdress, or gargush, that is in the shape of a cone and resembles a tiered cake. The headpiece weighs more than two pounds. But that isn’t the heaviest part: That’s where the jewelry comes in. She wears a chestful of necklaces, including one under her neck called a labbah, a thick collar of silver filigree beads braided into red yarn.
At the henna ceremony of Adva Tsur (née Zabari) last summer in Kadima, a town just outside of Tel Aviv, all of those beautiful sartorial customs were on display. “At first, it doesn’t feel heavy but after a while with the walking, dancing, it becomes very heavy on the chest,” says Tsur over the phone from Tel Aviv. “I felt pretty and I didn’t want to take the jewelry off even after the henna was over.” Jewelry-making has a special place in Yemenite culture, and many silversmiths today in Israel are of Yemenite descent. The bride’s necklaces speak to that tradition—Tsur wears the traditional labbah, in addition to weighty pieces made from amber and silver, which historically represented wealth. In other words, the bigger the necklace, the richer the bride’s family.
Where the weddings themselves tend to draw huge crowds, these ceremonies are a much more intimate affair, with a small group of female family members gathered to sing to the bride-to-be. “They are delivering the daughter away from her parents’ home. They sound happy but they are singing, ‘Don’t cry child,’ ” says Tsur. “It [the song’s meaning] is also sad, but because Yemenite are happy people; we make it into a party.” The celebration is a flamboyant event that has Arabic origins and an ancient history within the Yemenite community, a faction of Middle Eastern Jews.
Tsur, who is tour guide and a third-generation Yemenite on both sides of her family, met her husband Ahivu Tsur, an engineer who is half-Iraqi and half-Eastern European, over ten years ago at a mutual friend’s gathering. Tsur and Tsur then added each other on Facebook, and four years later when Tsur updated her picture, he reached out. The rest is history. Tsur’s mother had long wanted to have a henna ceremony. “When I brought a guy [to meet my parents], my mom was like, ‘I have a henna in my mind,’ says Tsur. “She really wanted me to have a henna and knew from day one.”
The henna was coordinated by Yafa Yehuda who has been a go-to person for the ceremonies over the past 20 years. A pillar of the Yemenite community, Yehuda helped to popularize Yemenite music serving as a backup singer for the prominent Yemenite-Israeli singer Ofra Haza. After Haza’s death from AIDS complications in 2000, Yehuda felt a calling to her Yemenite roots and began coordinating weddings to keep the traditions of her culture alive. “Thanks to Ofra, I am in this position today,” says Yehuda. She currently provides families with rentals for the traditional costumes and hosts the events in which she sings herself.
Yehuda is an integral part, a plug, for those who want to observe a Yemenite henna. ”The younger generation wants to pass down the traditions of their parents and their grandparents,” says Yehuda. “If they didn’t continue to have the henna celebration, it would die out. But people don’t want that to happen.” It is age-old and complex with its customs and clothing, differing from village to village in Yemen. Living among a Muslim majority, Yemenite Jews were considered dhimma, a protected people under Yemen law. Under this status, they paid special tax and restrictions were in place, including how colorful their clothing was and how high their homes could be built.
Currently, there are only a handful of Yemenite Jews left in Yemen and the majority live in Israel. Between 1948 and 1950, 50,000 were airlifted to Israel during operation “Magic Carpet,” joining the estimated 50,000 who already lived there. (There was a significant migration during the early 1900s.) Many of those who remained left following a series of extremist attacks on the small community—as of 2020, the count in Yemen was 40. When Yemenites immigrated to Israel, their traditions changed as they sought to assimilate with modern Israeli society. The desire to integrate changed attitudes toward the Yemenite henna. During the ’50s, a henna was associated with being old-fashioned and primitive, and as a result, Yemenites watered down the traditions, removing different aspects of the henna, such as the jewelry and clothing. In more recent times, thanks to social media and Yemenite-influenced pop culture in Israel, the ceremony has experienced a revival among a generation of young Yemenites rediscovering their roots. It has become so popular that even Ashkenazi Jews of European descent, who don’t observe the tradition, are opting for a henna.
This history of Yemenite traditions particularly is personal to Talia Collis who documented Tsur’s wedding through video and photographs. She herself is half-Israeli-Yemenite and half-British. Her great-grandfather was born in Yemen and had four wives and 12 children, all of whom eventually left their home country to settle in Israel. Collis considers herself closest with her grandmother, her Safta Noga from whom she learned about her Yemenite roots. “I felt a responsibility to my Safta Noga,” she says. “I wanted to show her that her culture is special to me and beautiful.”
Director: Talia Collis
DP: Ofir Peretz
Music: “Jat Mahibathi” by Yemen Blues
Producer: Ronit Ribak Madari
Editor: Ethan Nelson
Color: Dustin Wadsworth at Company 3
Title Design: Fabrizia Posada
Sound Mix: James Collins
Assistant Camera: Alon Daniel
Production Manager: Courtney Kamenski
Production Coordinator: Itamar Falush
Special thank you
Adva Zabari
Avihu Tsur
Yafa Yehuda
The Yemenite Mix Group
Originally Appeared on Vogue
